Safer gun ownership is possible — we did it here

The New York Times ran an editorial recently that referenced a bill I sponsored in Washington state — HB 1501, which cracks down on illegal gun purchases and notifies law enforcement and domestic violence survivors when someone tries to buy a gun and fails a background check. This was a team effort — we had a broad coalition of sheriffs and police chiefs (including Republican elected sheriffs), domestic violence survivors, and more — and we ended up passing it with huge bipartisan majorities, which is not easy to do with a gun bill.

I wanted to write something that explains how we got this through a divided Legislature in hopes that it could serve as practical how-to for how to actually get something done on gun legislation.

1. Find a Republican policy partner. This bill started with a conversation in the hall of our state Capitol with a Republican colleague who is in law enforcement in normal (non-legislative) life. I asked him, “What happens when someone tries to buy a firearm and fails a background check? Is there any follow-up?” Neither of us knew. And we figured if he (Republican, cop) didn’t know; and I (Democrat, member of Judiciary Committee that hears all the gun bills) didn’t know, then it was probably worth trying to find out. So we shook hands and agreed to work on it.

I can’t overstate the importance of this partnership. We worked for several months to come up with the basic shape of the bill, and then for months more through all the issues (both policy and political) that popped up. This wasn’t something where I came up with all the substance and said “Here it is, can you sign this bill”; it was a true policy partnership: he had ideas that ended up in the bill; I had ideas that ended up in the bill. This was huge: gun issues get so partisan so quickly, you have to do something to defuse the natural tendency to retreat to partisan battle stations whenever a bill has “gun” in it. It helped that my Republican policy partner had unimpeachable Second Amendment credentials — the guy wears a tie clip with the Washington state flag and an assault rifle on it; no one would ever mistake him for someone who doesn’t take firearms rights seriously.

2. Engage firearms owners (and the NRA): The 23rd Legislative District is fairly mixed politically — relevant to this issue, there are three gun ranges in or just outside the district boundaries, and (if my legislative email is any indication) lots of firearms owners who track gun legislation very, very closely. As soon as I realized I wanted to work on this, I started responding to emails about gun bills with “OK, here’s what I think about [bill you were writing about], but let me ask you this, will you help me think through [this issue I’m now thinking about]?”

This led to several fascinating, substantive exchanges with firearms owners that generated ideas that ended up in the bill, which is not what you would expect if you have the (false) idea that every gun owner is instinctively hostile to gun legislation. Here, gun owners were not “Forget it, no way, over my dead body do you pass a gun bill,” but exactly the opposite: they were thrilled that someone had taken the time to pose a problem to them [what do we do to put some teeth into the state’s background check law], ask for their feedback, and incorporate it into a bill.

Then, before we dropped the bill, we met with the NRA lobbyists. “Skeptical,” would be a fair word to describe their initial reaction — but that’s very different from “fiercely opposed,” so we had a place to start. They kept bringing up all these questions and concerns, and one by one we answered their questions and inserted language in the bill to resolve their concerns. One example: they wanted some language to protect people who get denied a firearm in error; we were totally fine with that. By the end, they agreed to be neutral on the bill, and the relationship was so stable that when I totally screwed up and forgot to invite them to a big meeting after the bill passed the House the lead NRA lobbyist said something like “Don’t worry about it; I know you’ll show us whatever language you end up with.”

Obvious point: this won’t work with an issue where the NRA has already made up its mind. But if you have a bill idea that’s sort of new, like ours, there’s a chance you can work together productively. Particularly if (as with our bill) it’s consistent with the two standard NRA talking points — we need to enforce existing laws and keep guns out of the hands of criminals.

3. Work at the state level. I get so frustrated with Congress — they just can’t seem to get anything done, ever, on anything. So although you should by all means keep up pressure on Congress to do something obvious like universal background checks (talk about a no-brainer; I had to get a background check before I could coach 11-year-old boys in soccer; you’re telling me you shouldn’t need a background check to buy a firearm?), don’t feel like that’s your only option; there is plenty of room at the state level. For example, does your state have universal background checks? If so, great; if not, looks like you have a project for 2018.

Bottom line, we can actually get something done here, so don’t give up hope. I get that this set of lessons-learned isn’t applicable to all possible gun bills, but it may work for some, so it’s shared in the “for what it’s worth, hope it helps” department. Thanks for reading; thanks for letting me take up your time with this.

Drew Hansen, D-Bainbridge Island, represents the 23rd Legislative District in the Washington State House of Representatives. Contact him at 360-786-7842 or Drew.Hansen@leg.wa.gov. This column was first published at medium.com.